The joy of pregnancy sex

It came to my attention that there was a real desire to see posts on pregnancy sex, and I’m more than happy to put out. Now, if there’s one thing I know about pregnancy, it’s that it varies for everyone, so I bet some people are filled with a complete lack of desire, and I’m sure that’s totally normal.

abcnews.com

The Playboy Mansion: The doula can stay in the grotto.

But for others of us, pregnancy ramps up the libido like nobody’s business. (And for a few of us, that’s like squirting lighter fluid onto a burning oil well.) Not so much in the barfy first trimester, but by the time the second trimester rolls around, it’s how I imagine adolescent boys must feel. I probably should have just taken a cue from them and locked myself in my room with my blacklight posters and played really loud music, yelling, “Just a sec! Don’t come in!” whenever anyone knocked. The urge knows no bounds. I’m not sure if this serves some evolutionary purpose, maybe to bond you more with your partner, or perhaps to ensure they are just as tired as you are all the time, or maybe to increase the number of naps you end up taking. Regardless of the reasons, I felt like I ought to move into the Playboy mansion. Yo, Hef …

However, there’s a couple catches. For me the pregnancy va-va-voom had similarities to PMS: While you want it all the time, you are also just touchy enough to do things that spoil the mood, like throw a giant screaming, crying fit over a cereal bowl left on the coffee table. It’s as though one part of you is conspiring against the happiness of the other part of you. I even had warring voices in my head, with one camp saying, “Just drop it! Get naked!” and the other camp shrieking, “But that bowl was left there intentionally to piss you off!” The result at times was what I like to call, “crabby sex,” which I believe also has its place.

Another obstacle in the path of satisfaction is the feeling of unattractiveness that comes with swollen ankles and a giant belly and spontaneous hair loss. The first trimester of giant porn-star boobs is fine, but as your body is slowly taken over by the parasitic life form, it gets a little touch-and-go. Oh I know, some pregnant women look exceptionally lovely, all glowing and serene and curvy. I was in the other category, the one where you look more like you’ve been severely beaten with the pregnancy stick, and it made stripping off clothing sort of less pleasant than usual. (Tip for partners: Give tons of reassurance, even if it borders on lying.) Speaking of porn stars, at one point in my third trimester I felt so grotesque that I spent a good hour looking for a specific kind of pornography featuring pregnant women just to see some positive role models, and I’ll spare you the details, but that kind of stuff is out there. I then promptly forgot about it until my husband was browsing through our internet history (I wonder why he was looking through the … oh, never mind) and approached me with it looking somewhat paler than usual, because it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d just want to happen upon. (My advice for the knocked up among us: Empty the cache.) I also know I’m not alone in my blue movie obsession, because another friend of mine made weekly treks to her local video store, emerging from the “Adults Only” back room with a stack of videos balanced on her big belly.

hotmoviesale.com

There’s no Third Trimester Edition … yet …

The third trimester also makes for some logistical challenges in the act itself. The prohibition against being on your back, coupled with the, oh, massive belly makes many positions laughable, and I honestly don’t think pregnancy is the time you wanna be messing around with some new kama sutra stuff, what with the physical discomfort and volatility and tendency for intimacy to get interrupted by, “What is it? Do you think that hurt the baby?” When you find something that works, it pays to stick with it, even if an incident you witnessed between a small Whippet and a Bernese Mountain dog does keeping popping unbidden into your mind. And there’s also nothing like couple good, visible kicks from the baby to weird out your partner during the act. But if you can get past that, and the strange emotional conflicts with conflating “mom” and “sex drive,” whoa boy, pregnancy sex ROCKS. And at least for once you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant.

KELLY MILLS is a writer, editor, blogger, and sucka for her daughter’s theatrics. She has a fitness blog, Fitness Fixation, and also blogs about the world of parenting for Babble.com at Strollerderby and Droolicious.